The first sign of the trouble mentioned was a vaguely sulfurous
scent in the air, then as I passed a cross-passage, I noted what
looked like the feeble glow of low-burning embers. I came to a stop,
then without thinking I stepped on something that gave out a feeble
screech. Backing away, I knelt down, and squeaked, “a spider,
though... What happened to its legs?”

“It must be a smaller blue-back, then,” said Sarah, as she came
up and prodded the partly-crushed spider with one of her boots.
“They drop legs and regrow them if they are still small and
deprived of food for a time.” A brief pause, then, “that place
had its fetishes, and...” Sarah paused, then asked, “how did
that spider get up here?”

“Some of the smaller ones found a secret passage with ample prey
suitable for such spiders,” said the soft voice, “and they stayed
in it for the most part until that prey was killed off. They then
dispersed throughout the building, and now are mostly dead – or, in
a few cases, dying like that one was.”

The next fetish, however, I felt at a considerable distance, and
when I asked it to 'go to hell', the booming rumble was only exceeded
by the billowing thick clouds of smoke that chased us out of the
hallway and back toward the doorway, and as I began climbing the
stairs unthinkingly, I asked amid choking sounds coming from behind
me as well as my own, “was that all of the fetishes for that
floor?”

“Yes, and the explosion triggered the dangerous ones on the
next floor,” said the soft voice. “There still are a few present
there, so wait a minute or so where you are so the fumes can clear
out before going out onto that floor.”

Sarah sniffed, then said, “that witch must have set another trap
above us, if I go by how it smells here.”

“He did, and that to keep non-witches out of witch-territory,”
said the soft voice. “He knew about the secret passages on the
'official' plans for this building, but most of those passages
weren't on those plans.”

“And hence the non-witches bypassed both the witch-lifts and
his traps when they were inclined,” I muttered. “I think we can
go up further shortly.”

As we resumed our climbing of stairs, I asked, “witch-lifts? As
in only witches could use them?”

“Those, no,” said the soft voice. “Those were installed when
witchdom was yet young in the area, and those 'curses' you saw were
more in name than in reality.” A brief pause, then, “though by
the time of the war, there had been enough badly-done repairs
performed by 'trashed witches' that one needed at least one 'strong'
witch inside so as to chant at the lifts. They otherwise functioned
erratically at best.”

“Cursed parts, no doubt,” I said.

“Fourth-rate cursed parts,” said the soft voice. “They
mostly were 'badly-done parts with low-grade curses imprinted upon
them'.” A pause, then, “the combination of long and hard use,
poor to non-existent maintenance, badly-made replacement parts of
poor material, and droves of severely-impaired marginally-competent
repairmen resulted in elevators that were dangerous to operate by
anyone other than a fairly strong witch.”

“Severely-impaired repairmen?” I asked, as I cautiously opened
the door to the 'thirteenth floor'.

“Much like today's witches tend to be drunk,” said the soft
voice. “The usual 'witch' of that day did not dress in
black-cloth, tended to avoid overt violence, and seldom spoke in
anything other than the usual language, but – with few exceptions –
was inclined strongly toward the things of witchdom; and
therefore, was nearly always 'as drunk as a stinker'.” A pause.
“You can guess how well they usually did things, at least then.”

“And once the place was an above-ground witch-hole, they did
better work?” I asked. I hesitated upon the threshold, as the reek
of death was still strong in the air. I was also having trouble
breathing, for some reason, and I wondered if I was being poisoned.

“As a rule, such equipment wasn't just done 'better',” said the
soft voice. “It was also seriously cursed. The two things
combined meant two things: one needed to be a strong witch to use
anything made that way, or it would kill the user at the least; and
secondly, if one was a strong witch and could invoke the
curses that made the thing 'work', the device in question tended to
perform extremely well – and in many cases, there was no
real competition, save from one location.”

“Vrijlaand,” said Sarah with finality. “It was the only
territory which welcomed marked people before that war.”

“Not quite,” said the soft voice. “Up until the hot phase of
the war ended, that location across the sea welcomed their services
also.” There was more implied in what was said – quite a bit
more, in fact – but now, it was time to resume our 'journey into
the night'. I then led off onto 'floor thirteen'.

The first intimation of trouble was a gaping hole in the floor of
the main corridor on the east side of the building. I was
sufficiently tired from walking that I stopped but a foot or so short
of its edge, and as the others 'stacked up' behind me, I softly said,
“move very slowly to each side of me, and then hug the walls while
watching your feet. I would advise crawling if you are able to do
so, in fact.”

“Why is that?” asked Karl. I could tell he was going to his
knees just the same.

“You do not wish to fall in that hole, do you?” asked Katje.
“Now this surprises me.”

I turned, first to my right, then the left; and on the left, I saw
Gabriel the first in line leading the other men – and he was
crawling, just like I said was advisable. More, he was carefully
tapping the floor ahead of him with what looked like an old
carpenter's hammer, one so old it did not have the carved bulbous
'face' at the end of a too-long handle, but one much shorter and
common-looking. As he reached the wall – the bomb had left amply
wide margins, such that one could walk if one could see well
in such darkness as was present here – I then began walking slowly
to the left while tapping the floor ahead with my club.

“I thought so,” said Katje as I began tapping with my stick.
“That witch must have used something cursed, as I can see purple
here and there, and I'm glad I'm crawling, as my lantern might as
well be running a bad tallow candle and no wire for all the light it
is giving.”

I then saw the first crack in the floor, and this purple-flashed
crevasse made for wondering, first as to how I could so readily
discern it, then as to just how wide that narrow margin was on the
left side – then finally, where did the women go – as they were
not behind me, and I could barely hear them or the others
moving. I reached mechanically for my possible bag, found a vial of
honey, then sucked down two slurps of the thick molasses-like
material.

I was glad I could do so by feel, as my sight came back up with such
suddenness that I nearly screamed when I saw what lay down in
the hole made by the explosion.

“P-pipes, and a w-walkway, and a lot of bones, and...”

The nonsense was not done with me, however, as for an instant of
time I seemed to see gauzily a huge and sentient tentacle come forth
from the realm below. I almost wanted to speak of something with
tentacles, this thing not of this world or where I came from, but the
apparition faded before I could speak.

“You'll learn more about 'things with tentacles' in the future,”
said the soft voice. “The witches of that time not only knew of
that creature, but also the all-too-real creature that was
thought to have 'inspired' that man's stories by invading his
frequent nightmares.”

I found the edge of the crater, this time by sight rather than feel,
and with returned and growing vision, I easily walked around its
edges. More, I could clearly see the path left ahead of me by the
two women, and when I came to the wall, I found the 'ledge' to be
easily two and a half feet wide. I then looked across the corridor,
and saw through an open doorway and blasted hole in the outer wall
that the sun had indeed gone down. It was still 'light' in the east,
however, and I could still hear the sounds of ongoing labor below and
some distance away.

“That's not why it's so dark in here, isn't it?” I asked,
as I found first Katje and then Sarah some ten feet away from the
south edge of the hole. The men were crawling toward us, Gabriel
still in the lead.

“Why are you crawling like that?” asked Sarah.

“Because I spent enough time crawling in the mud last night to
learn of its advantages,” said Gabriel, “and I wanted to get well
clear of that hole before standing.”

“Was it playing with your vision?” I asked.

“I am not sure it was doing that,” said Gabriel, as he finally
stood up and began walking, “but I am sure of what was reaching out
of that hole so as to grab at me, and I knew that if I stood, it
would be able to put its rope-like members around me and then pull me
into its mouth.”

“Where did you hear about that?” asked Sarah – who implied
Gabriel was speaking of lies and other rubbish. “Only a witch
would speak of such a thing, as nothing like that lives in sea or
river.”

“One of my lecturers spoke of a creature that resembled a
witch-table, and it had long tenuous arms...” Gabriel was becoming
confused, as what he had heard was a very vague description of
something that was only described well in the larger
black books. I was about to speak when Sarah did so for me.

“That sounds more like a witch than any lecturer I have
heard or heard of, Gabriel,” said Sarah. “The witches believe in
a great many things that are misconceived or outright lies, and I
have heard them speak of that thing several times.”

“That thing?” I asked.

“I know enough now to not name anything writ in runes,”
said Sarah, “but whatever that thing is, it tends to show itself
whenever a witch pronounces its name, and that no matter how foolish
or stupid or new to witchdom that witch might be.” A brief pause,
then as we 'formed up' once more with my club in my hand, Sarah said,
“it looks a bit like a very large witch-table, with a number of
legs like a spider's and these strange things hanging down from its
head, and then it has many arms.”

“Those were what I saw a few minutes ago,” said Gabriel. “One
of those strange things was reaching for me...”

“Those are not that long,” said Sarah. “Its arms might be
long enough to do that, and it has more than two of those arms, but
those strange things hanging off of its head are not very capable, if
I go by what I saw a minute or two ago.”

I somehow had the impression that Gabriel and Sarah were talking
about different versions of the same creature, and as we passed the
corner heading clockwise – I dared not traverse these corridors the
other way, as that way of circling had not merely special cachet
among witches then and now, but also a special name written in the
black book.

“And it is not widdershins,” I thought. “It probably
means something similar, but it is not widdershins.”

“Mostly because that portion of the black book is written in
Underworld German and not the language you grew up speaking,” said
the soft voice. “Were it written in that language on that
planet, that word would be the one used.”

“You do not want to speak that word, then,” said Sarah, “as it
would most likely flash colors like a rune-curse if you did.”

“Flash colors?” I gasped.

“Ever since my time in the forest, that has happened whenever I
have heard witches curse in that way,” said Sarah. “More than
one tapestry mentioned the colors of witchdom, and for the longest
time, I wondered why they seemed to desire such bright colors for so
much of what they did.” A change in voice, this time to the
dryness of the tableland, “and now, I have a much better
idea.”

However, as we turned the southeast corner, we went from a realm of
dust and into a realm of soot and smoke, and the wind at our backs
drove the smoke before us so that we could breathe. As it was,
however, there were coughs and spitting, and I seemed the leader in
both activities.

“The only thing that makes this floor tenable is all of those
holes blown in the walls,” muttered Sarah. “Otherwise we would
smother in this smoke. What did that witch do?”

“That was the exact idea, dear,” said the soft voice. “That
one witch kept non-witches and those other than his people out
of his favored areas by trapping them, and the rune-writ warning
signs were destroyed in the fires that resulted from them going where
they belonged.”

“Was there anything else there?” I asked.

“Yes, some fetishes of a most-flammable nature,” said the soft
voice. “Their fuel added to the blast and fires quite nicely, and
destroyed every other fetish in the building that this group
might have trouble with.” A pause, then, “there are a few weak
ones left on this floor and the floors above this one that can cause
others trouble, and they need disposal before you-all can leave the
building tonight.”

“Trouble, he says,” I muttered. “They'd be ridden like
mules.”

“Which is why we must dispose of them tonight and not wait until
tomorrow,” said Sarah. “Those people out there have been
watching when they have not been laboring, and I can tell some of
them are wanting to come inside here so as to work indoors.”

“The carpenters do,” said Katje. “Right now, anyone who can
dig is on that job, and those smiths in that place are going
to pound iron as long as they are able to.”

“Why is that?” asked Karl. He spat, and I turned to see a
glowing mess fly in the darkness to then splat upon the wall.

“Recall just how uncommon those tools are like those we found?”
asked Katje. “There aren't that many of them.”

“Yes, because most of those things are bad fifth kingdom junk,”
said Karl.

“You just answered your question, Karl,” said Sarah. “Those
were not common fifth kingdom tools, but bad ones, and hence they're
good for little beyond fuel for stoves and scrap metal for that one
furnace once they've seen a few days of hard use.”

“Then why did they bother bringing them?” I asked.

“Most likely they did not bring them,” said Gabriel. “If
one must travel, and that amongst witches inimical to one doing so,
then one does not wish to carry weight beyond the minimum.”

“How would you know about that?” asked Sarah pointedly.
“You never dodged witches.”

“That trip back from the fifth kingdom,” I muttered. “We had
them after us, and in front of us, and to each side, and traveling
underground, and...”

“Yes, you did,” said Sarah. “I have also.” A pause, then,
“I know both of those older men, and they were speaking of him
being ridden like a smelly mule from the time you-all got into the
fifth kingdom house until the group had reached this area on the
return trip.”

“He needed tying in the fifth kingdom,” said Karl, “and this
is strange, as when that was done, every one of us had an
easier time.”

“You just now realized that, didn't you?” I asked.

“Yes, I did,” said Karl. “I think what we did down in that
bad hole did something to my head, as I can think better now.”

“Do you still have any dynamite?” I asked.

“Yes, though it is safe where you live,” said Karl. “I got
busy with the sword swinging on those bone-things and that bag I had
it in got lost, and when I found the bag again, someone had taken
everything like that out of it.” A pause, then, “and I think
they were tossing that stuff, as I got tossed twice by explosions and
once nearly struck by lightning.”

We left the smoke and fumes behind once northbound on the west
hallway, and though the place smelled strange – off-fumes from one
or more bombs, most likely, as several cross-passages were faintly
hazed with purple – we were able to proceed without further
incident on that floor.

The fourteenth floor: nothing, save for a single fetish. I told the
thing to 'go to hell' from the doorway, and the multitude of far-off
booms and rumbles told me that I was most likely wrong as to the
number of fetishes.

“Yes, because you didn't just get the single example on that
floor,” said the soft voice. “You cleared those on the two
floors above you as well the handful you forgot on the one below, so
after opening those doors above to help the smoke and gases go
outside, go up three further floors past the last smoky one and look
on that floor.”

“Something there,” I gasped, as I continued forcing my aching
legs up the stairs one after another. A rest for the others while I
opened and latched each door, then once I opened the door to the
floor spoken of, the fetid reek of 'death' was so astonishing that I
hesitated with my body, even if someone else to my rear spoke softly
of rats and their odors. I glanced down at my club as I gripped it
tighter while seeming to see the cracks in the thing, and walked in,
lantern held low and to my left.

I didn't quite manage five paces inside the doorway before the first
rat 'came for me' and I swatted it to the left – and then, with a
squeaking rush, a swarm of rats seemed to all but drip from
the ceiling to surround me on all sides.

“A rat-mine!” I yelled, as I began smashing rats as fast
as I could swing on them. “I knew it, there had to be a
rat-mine in the place, and I found it!”

The swish and thud of clubs now redoubled in frequency, for someone
else was swinging one in addition to myself; then a yell made me jump
out of the way as someone swung a hammer and belted a rat downrange
like a softball. I heard someone unsheathe a sword, then Sarah
yelled as a red mist seemed to float my way. A few more swings, then
as an unusually large rat flew toward me as if it had hitched a ride
to a skyrocket. I swung on it and heard a distinct crackling noise
that echoed off of the walls amid a chorus of squeaks and shrieks.

Another rat, this one leaping from the side. I connected, sending
the rat bouncing off of the ceiling with a sound worthy of a home run
hit, a third one which I smacked harder yet – and then a fourth
rat...

The crack that time sounded distinctly different, much as if
the rat was filled with iron. It still flew downrange like a shot to
smash into a wall and ricochet down the hall.

And finally, I swung on 'something' big as it came leaping
along the ground, and I heard and felt the club 'go'.

“Ouch!” yelled someone downrange as a blizzard of splinters
seemed to fill the air around me as the rat flew tumbling
end-over-end. “Toss that club!”

“Toss it?” I wondered, as the rats seemed to vanish like magic.
I then thought to look at what I was holding, for it had lost a
great deal of weight somehow. I had only begun to really notice the
thing's weight but recently due to my severe and fast-growing
fatigue.

“Oh my,” I said softly as I saw the splintered remnants of the
club ending but inches above the grip portion, then in an even softer
voice, “what happened to it?”

“That club is fit for the stove now,” deadpanned Sepp, “but at
least you killed your share of rats with it.”

“Yes, and I wore one of them,” said Katje. “You're as bad as
Georg is said to be.”

“No,” said Karl. “He is worse. Georg does not send rats
flying like rockets.”

“Mostly because he goes after pigs,” I said, “and while
some rats are as large as Shoeten, those do not grow that large up
here.”

“You would send them flying like rockets if you swung on them, as
I saw the rat that you broke that club on,” deadpanned Karl. “Now
this is strange.”

“No, Karl,” said Sarah. “These rats are not from the fourth
kingdom, and witches did not bring them up here, as those were
all on the ground floor.”

“Those things are on every floor in the kingdom house proper,”
said Karl, “so how is it these cannot climb up here?”

“The doors were closed, Karl,” said Sarah, “and I've read
about this place on tapestries as well as in the Grim Collection.”
Sarah then looked upward, and muttered, “that place might well be
hidden well, and there might not be any way for us to get up
there now, but that place is warm enough to grow rats bigger than
anyplace else in the first kingdom outside of where witches raise
them especially.”

“An attic?” I asked. “As it's the uppermost floor, it has a
near-flat roof of this weird, uh, rock that absorbs heat, so it never
gets truly cold there – and in fact the inside of that place is
usually closer to the way the fourth kingdom for is for warmth?”

“Thank you,” said Sarah. “I could never understand that that
portion of that tapestry until now, and now it makes sense to me.”

“And these rats make sense, also,” said Sepp. “I've found
several twice the usual size for the first kingdom's rats, and I
think those were the smaller ones.”

Sepp proved right, for as we spread out to search out the nature of
the 'rat-mine', exclamations rang out about 'large rats' and 'mashed
rats', as well as rats that had flown astonishing distances, but when
Katje shouted “I found a witch!”, everyone left off their
searching for mere rodents and converged on where her yells were
coming from. I came from around the corner at a run and shot through
a cloud of flying insects to narrowly miss Katje and leap over a huge
mess in the floor – to then be sent sprawling when I tripped over a
weighty 'sandbag'.

“What was that?” I squeaked, as I got up and began walking back
the way I had come.

“That was one of those rats you killed,” said Sarah. “I've
never heard of rats that large flying that far after being struck
with clubs.”

“Th-that large?” I asked. I then turned to then backtrack, and
once close, I actually looked at the rat.

“Thing's big enough to be a member of the rat brigade,” I
muttered. “It has to be three feet long in the body.”

“If it is that large,” said Sarah, “then there is somewhere
warm enough to foster such animals in this building, as well as ample
store of food for them in the building or some place nearby.”

“Where would they get it?” asked Maarten.”

“I am not certain,” said Sarah, “but given people's speaking
of difficulty raising crops in this general area, I suspect something
tends to raid them heavily.”

“Why do they bother planting anything around here, then?” I
asked.

“Because some families have many children survive to adult years,
and farmland, especially land that has been decently cleared, is
scarce along main roads,” said Sarah. “Later-born children of
larger families often need to clear their own fields of rocks, which
is how most fields become cleared in this area.”

“Anna's relatives..?”

“I would ride money on them helping a family member to clear such
a field,” said Sarah. “The usual is that such fields are cleared
by all of the family members and relatives within an easy day's ride
unless they cannot be spared, at least in this area.” A brief
pause, then, “and uncleared fields, especially in the central
portion of the first kingdom, are the absolute worst for exploding
that I've ever heard of.”

“I know,” said Maarten. “If you're within fifty miles of the
kingdom house and you clear a new field of any size at all, there's a
fair chance someone will be hurt or killed by one of those cursed
things showing up near your plow and then exploding.”

“Unless, of course, you're a strong witch,” I muttered.

“There are no living witches strong enough to cope with such
ordnance,” said the soft voice, “so such fields would not wait
for the bombs and shells to be plowed up.” A brief pause, then,
“they would detonate as soon as a witch would get close enough to
be reliably killed, in fact, which is why you seldom see
witches plowing fields that they did not purchase already-cleared and
farmed for some years at the very least.”

“Witches do not plow fields,” said Karl. “They pay others to
do it for them.”

“Unless the witches are those that wish to hide especially well,”
said Sarah. “There are a fair number of those people, or were, at
least in this area.”

“Are, dear,” I said. “Every other type of witch and
would-be witch is pretty scarce, but those people...”

“Are currently being forced to lie very low,” said the
soft voice. “Otherwise, though, you're right. They've lost the
smallest percentage of their numbers of any type of witch or
supplicant that currently lives in this area.” A brief pause,
then, “where there used to be five or six such well-hid witches,
there now is one such witch.”

“S-smallest percentage?” I gasped. “E-eighty-plus
percent?”

“That sounds about right,” said Sepp. “It would take someone
like you looking for them right now, as the only witches and those
people who want to be witches in this area that still live are those
stinkers that can keep the pigs from finding them out.” Sepp
looked at the remains of what Katje had found, then knelt down.
“This witch must have been one of those dumping spiders in the
building, as he did not come...”

“No, Sepp,” said Sarah. “This person died not more than a few
days ago, and I doubt him to be a witch, actually.”

Sarah shook her head, then sniffed. “He got into the datramonium.
I know that much.”

“Then he is a witch,” said Karl.

“Or a sacrifice,” I said. “Witches dose those people with
datramonium before killing them.”

“Close enough,” said the soft voice. “That man was captured
by a column of witches on the way here during the last instance of
unloading spiders, and he was sent in here beforehand as 'bait' for
Iggy.” A pause, then, “Iggy knew better, of course, as did the
Desmond, and between the two of them they ate not only all of
those witches and teams of mules, but scattered the remains of their
meal quite thoroughly, such that no one in the area was the wiser.”

“How?” asked Sarah.

“The witches came down from the north-tip the last dozen or so
times they dumped spiders and rats in the Abbey, and that last trip
was the largest one by far, which is why you've found as many live
spiders and rats as you have,” said the soft voice. “Rats,
especially large ones, need ample food, and while most spiders
don't need to eat that often, blue-backs, especially if they are
larger examples, need to eat multiple times per day to stay
alive.”

“And hence this man..?”

“Wandered the floors until he finally died of thirst,” said the
soft voice. “He was given just enough datramonium tincture to make
him unable to think clearly for a lengthy period of time, but not
enough to actually kill him.” A pause, then, “between being
poisoned and then cursed, he wandered about the various floors of the
Abbey until he died.”

“How did he get up on the floors, though?” I asked.

“There are other ways to get from floor to floor other than
just secret passages, those stairs, and the lifts,” said the soft
voice. “They just take finding – and he had time to get this far
before he died.”

“How did he see, though?” asked Maarten.

“Partly due to becoming accustomed to the lack of light, and
mostly because he bumped into a lot of walls and other places
during the days of delirium he endured prior to his dropping
unconscious and then dying,” said the soft voice. “Datramonium
slightly improves night-vision in non-witches, though its
effects otherwise make it the dire poison it truly is.”

“And that at a tenth of the usual witch-load,” said Gabriel, “or
so Freek told me.”

“Even touching a datramonium plant isn't a good idea,
Gabriel,” said Sarah. “I did once, and I was deathly ill for
days.”

“T-touched one?” I asked.

“Yes, to uproot it,” said Sarah. “I didn't know that those
things are best splashed with lye and then trimmed back with old
corn-knives once they wither, and then gloves and a long chain used
for the bulls once they're cut back to a stump.”

I thought to dispose of the dead rats by dragging them to the
nearest window and tossing them out, but as I made ready to pick one
up by the tail, Sarah said, “no, leave them lay. If there are
other rats in the building, they'll eat these quick enough to...”
Sarah stopped, then pointed with a trembling finger and screeched.

“What, dear?” I asked, as I ran to her side.

“One of those dead rats was just dragged off,” said Sarah. “I
think two or three smaller ones...” Sarah paused, then looked at
me before asking, “was that a rat, or was it something
else?”

“I'm not certain, dear,” I said, as I 'sniffed'. “Nothing
more on this floor, so we'd best get up to the next one. There is
something up there.”

As we climbed the stairs, Karl asked, “what is this something?”

“I'm not truly certain,” I said. “I think it's cooking fuel,
though this time we might find more than just a jug of the stuff.”

Once I had opened the door and locked it in position, though, I took
off like a shot. I could feel the draw of the thing, and as I passed
an open side-passage, I saw a hint of red in my peripheral vision. I
stopped in mid-stride, then screamed, “go to hell!”

The bloom of red flame was so small and so brief that I wondered
what had happened, at least for an instant. That one 'lure' then
grabbed my attention once more, and I wondered for a good deal longer
– about five rapid strides – if it was bait of a sort.

“No, because no one who has come up here since that stuff was
abandoned has been able to find it,” said the soft voice. “You
noticed it from a considerable distance away.”

“And will probably find it quickly,” said Katje. “Now is this
just cooking fuel, or is there something to use it in as well?”

“B-both, dear,” I said. “Oh, it's up this hallway, and in
this room on the right about fifty feet west, behind a well-disguised
'false wall' that has finally fallen down.”

The false wall had not merely fallen down; it had gone entirely to a
fine species of thready sawdust of moldy odor, and as I shuffled
through the mounded and piled mess, I found first one jug, then
another – and then finally, an old 'corroded' thing that had me
wondering if I had found a transmigrated antique Primus stove of some
kind. I showed it to Sarah, who then screeched as if she'd set
herself alight.

“This is one of those lamps I spoke of,” she squalled, “and
that f-fuel...”

“Is what they were designed to run on,” said the soft
voice. “That one just needs a thorough cleaning, and then you have
a stove that will work better than a heating-lamp.”

“But one problem,” I murmured. “Those things they have will
recognize it.”

“True, they will,” said the soft voice, “but if you are
careful when and where you use it, you'll find it well
worth its modest weight and volume.”

“Uh, why?” I asked.

“Because it does not use a wick, unlike those that turn up
periodically in the scrap-market,” said the soft voice. “It
generates its own pressure, so while yours will simmer better,
this one will put out more heat for its size and weight – and you
will wish that when cooking for a group.”

Gabriel looked at me, then said, “that was the single trouble with
that lamp you brought. It may have been easy to use, and it did
work well for much of what we cooked, but when we needed much heat,
then it was worsted by those ovens we sometimes found or an open
fire.”

“Bathwater,” I said.

“No, not bathwater,” said the soft voice. “Remember, that
place is cold. Recall how one must eat more during the cold
season around here?”

“That also,” said Gabriel. “I also suspect we may have
visitors, which means we will wish to be able to cook for more than
five on occasion, and then some of those places we stay in may wish
more than merely warm clothing. They will wish heat, also.”

While this speech had continued, I thought to look further over in
one of the corners of the room, and I found a small region walled off
by 'pressboard'. Removal of this roughly eight inch square sheet of
material brought out a small cloth pouch, which I passed to Sarah –
and then, another such pouch, this one long, narrow, and peculiarly
labeled with faded black letters. I passed that pouch around once we
had gone outside of the room and were headed back toward the stairs.

“This stuff looks like cooking fuel,” said Sepp. He'd brought
out a small rectangular whitish brick that reminded me of a piece of
paraffin; it had a faint and somewhat musty smell. “It smells
different, though.”

“That's the old military material,” said Gabriel. “There's a
sizable stack of that stuff in that armory, then there's this
other material that looks somewhat like it, only that stuff is not
cooking fuel.”

“Then what is it?” I asked. For some reason, I had the
impression what was being spoken of was 'plastic-wrapped
pre-moistened toilet paper'.

“It is not a substitute for privy rags,” said Gabriel.
“It has a very unpleasant odor, is a bit softer than common
cooking fuel as sold currently in the fourth kingdom, and burns very
hotly, at least for a short time.”

“That sounds like cooking fuel,” said Sepp.

“After that short time, however,” said Gabriel, “this stuff
explodes like mining dynamite – and I do not mean common mining
dynamite.” A pause, then, “I mean the stuff that Hans speaks of
giving him nightmares.”

“He has a replacement for it,” said Sarah dryly. “That stuff
that looks like vlai makes mining dynamite seem tame for power, even
if it can be dropped onto the floor from waist-height without
exploding.”

“I think it substitutes headaches for nightmares,” said
Maarten. “Mine is gone, but I still had it until we were going
back up those dusty stairs.”

“That is because she” – here, Katje indicated Sarah with her
lamp-hand; she had a jug in the other – “replaced it with a
sword-poke.”

“No, Maarten,” said Katje. “They shrank much when they were
cleaned, and that I saw with my own eyes.”

“They were worse than you think they were,” I said. I had
discerned this with my eyes shut tight, and their size and location
made for silent prayer on my part. More, I wondered as to what Anna
would think when Maarten spoke of them at a later time.

“She'll want to look at them,” said the soft voice, “and she
will be very surprised.”

“What – their size?” I asked.

“That and the fact that they're almost healed,” said the soft
voice. “That location normally means a long and painful recovery,
especially as Sarah poked him a good deal harder than you gave her
credit for.”

“Why, was he slowing up matters?”

“Nearly as much as Gabriel was, though for a much-different
reason,” said the soft voice, “and Sarah, by that time, was
frantic enough that she was being a good deal less gentle than she
was when she first started poking and slicing people.”

“Much-different?” I asked. I suspected 'bad knees', actually.

“Not those,” said the soft voice. “He was concerned about
your well-being, and wished to wait for you, but Sarah told
him you could cope with such matters without any such 'assistance'
from him.” A pause, then, “in that aspect, he would have
only caused you trouble, and she knew that.”

“And now his knees are causing him trouble,” I thought.

“Yes, now,” said the soft voice. “Yours are but
slightly better than his are, by the way.”

“Still need to go up as far as the stairs do,” I murmured, as I
resumed walking up the stairs.

Each step now seemed to take an age, and at each such landing where
we could open doors, I – and the others, I now realized – needed
to rest for at least a moment. Even without excess burdens, climbing
this many stairs was not easy; and when I looked at the
others, I noted them, with the exception of Sarah, to have much
smaller loads than I did. The one comforting matter that I could
think of was the trip downward, and after opening what felt like over
a dozen doors, I wondered how many more doors there were left to
open.

And as I did, I knew that not merely was the next door the last one
we needed to open, but it also led to the biggest prize we had
yet found – the biggest physically, and also the biggest in other
ways.

“Bigger even than that mortar shell,” I thought, as I felt the
thing 'better'. There were but two more short flights of stairs to
go, and some distance above our heads, moonlight was softly
glimmering from far to the west through a dust-hued skylight. “I
hope Anna does not become terrified upon seeing it.”

“Explain how it works carefully,” said the soft voice, “and
tell her that the guns that fire them will be of a kind she will
enjoy especially.”

“Uh, why?” I asked. “Their size?”

And while I received no answer, I had an impression. Anna had once
spoken of playing a violin, and by the talk I had heard from other
sources, she was no mean player – perhaps even 'concert grade'
where I came from. This particular species of gun had its own
quirks, and somehow, being a violin player made one unusually capable
regarding aiming it.

“More than that,” said the soft voice. “Anna will acquire a
most-unusual 'name' once she learns about those guns, and she will
become celebrated for her celerity in their use.”

“Uh, why?” I silently asked.

“You're known quite well for your tendency to hit things with what
you shoot,” said the soft voice. “Anna, even if she does not
know it yet, is most capable with those guns and others like
them.”

“M-most capable?” I thought.

“She will be able to drop her very first round with no
teaching on the matter,” said the soft voice, “and she will put
that round right where she wants it to land – and with a little
practice, she'll be able to lead moving targets and hit them
first time – and that nearly every time.”

“I heard that,” said Sarah from the step behind me, “and I am
glad these stairs are at an end.” A brief pause, then, “I might
be able to help her, as I can play one of those things also.”

“What?” I gasped.

“I've not had one in hand in quite some time,” said Sarah, “but
an orchestra usually has several violinists, and I traveled with
Anna, even if I was younger than she.”

“Will you take to mortars?” I asked.

“I am not sure about being as good with them as she will be,”
said Sarah, “but I doubt much that I will have trouble landing
shells if I can see the target.”

“Indirect fire means you cannot see the target,” said Katje,
“and most three inch guns are fired at targets you can see.”

“Yes, usually,” said Sarah. “I once dug a hole for a gun's
tail and used distance-shells on some of those boats those northern
people use, and I hit two out of three at a distance I have
trouble believing.”

“What?” I asked, as I reached for the last door's handle. “You
got more elevation on the gun that way?”

“And double the distance,” said Sarah. “You cannot cut a fuse
long enough to shoot that far, and Willem still has trouble
believing I hit those things.”

“How did you learn of hitting them?” I asked, as I held the door
open and put the 'key' in the notch.

“Mirror-flashes using wire-code, and that with multiple relays,”
said Sarah – who then looked up as she went through the door.
“There are two floors above this one, and then that attic.”

“Two?” I asked. “Or does it seem like two floors, what with
all the ducting and things they put up for those, uh, lifts?” I
then had a question.

“If there are two floors, then how does one access them, and why
did we see that skylight but ten feet above our heads when we went in
the doorway to this floor?”

“Mostly because those two 'floors' are indeed as you said they
were,” said the soft voice. “The motors for the lifts are quite
sizable, they have their control apparatus, there's a lot of
piping of various sizes, and then there's the building's heating,
cooling, and ventilation apparatus – and above all of that
is that attic.”

“And... Thirty feet?” I gasped.

“Those motors are a lot bigger than you'd think needed for
a 'lift' of that size due to their inefficiency,” said the soft
voice. “Given they were installed when the building was first
built, that should not surprise you.”

“B-bad motors,” I muttered. “They needed a watchman for each
one if they were to be used much.”

“Each section of each motor, you mean,” said the soft voice.
“These are what were called 'double-ended' motors, which means two
stators, a 'compound' rotor made from multiple pieces, and multiple
bearings, complete with a lot of open-to-the-air machinery – and
all of that stuff needed regular manual oiling and a good deal of
careful maintenance, much like one of those Machalaat steam engines
does.”

“I thought so,” said Sarah. “Now where is this thing you were
thinking of?”

I led off at the best pace I could manage, and as I did, I finally
actually 'felt' the state of my knees. I soon heard a comment from
behind, then as Sarah came along side of me, she said, “spewing or
no spewing, you'll want that special Geneva tonight, and no mistake.”

“Why?” I asked quietly.

“You are limping,” said Karl from somewhere close behind me.
“Now how much does that bag you carry weigh?”

“Enough that it will surprise you if you try carrying it,” said
Sarah. “I tried picking it up once, and it makes what I carry seem
light – and my satchel is not light.” Sarah then muttered
about what else I was carrying, that being my rifle.

“Did you try to shoot it?” I asked.

“Not yet,” said Sarah, “but I have held it more than once
while helping Anna clean around your workbench while you were gone.”
A brief pause, then, “and if that gun bruises you with its weight,
then it is as fully bad as a roer.”

“Yes, I know,” muttered Karl. “You should try shooting it
some time.”

“Only if I run into another bad witch,” said Sarah. “I was
told that I needed something that sent its bullets rapidly, and that
thing does that.”

“Perhaps something that fires a lighter bullet, then,” I asked.
“I... Oh! There are things here that do that, and...”

“And what?” asked Sarah.

“I think what's up ahead that I'm feeling does that,” I said.
“It's a lot faster than what I have that way, in fact.”

And in saying so, I somehow recalled a weapon I had once owned, this
being a rifle with a very flat trajectory. Not merely was it the
most accurate weapon I had – it made hitting targets at reasonable
ranges 'easy' – but I could actually shoot it a fair amount and not
be sore.

“That is not the case for what you are feeling now,” said
the soft voice. “This one might permit repeated firing in the
course of a day, and not a little of such firing, but until you're
adequately protected, you'll not wish to shoot it more than perhaps a
dozen or so times a day.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” I said – as I recalled another
rifle, one I had been 'loaned' – and by the middle of the match I
was shooting, I was not merely very sore, but I was hoping the
rest of the 'superannuated' – it was older than I was by nearly a
decade, and the rifle older yet – ammunition was defective. It
wasn't, and I did finish, but my scores were horrible due to
the 'brutal' recoil of the weapon.

“It is not one of those,” said the soft voice. “There
were similar weapons in 'common' use at one time, but they were found
to be unsuitable for the majority of that country's soldiers once
they became interested in fielding an army of real size.”

“Probably killed at both ends,” I muttered. “Did those try to
bite the hands that fed them?”

“Very much so,” said the soft voice – whose tone then
changed to a colder one. “You will see some of those
weapons in a few places overseas, and in the process, learn why
they were rarely used after better designs became available.”

“I am not firing one, then,” I muttered. “That thing was
evil.”

“What was this?” asked Sepp. He was on my left side, while
Sarah was on my right. I was glad for the company, as I was not
merely well beyond any common aspect of tired, but I was also having
no small amount of trouble moving. My legs seemed to not merely
ache, but each knee seemed swollen to the point of limping, and each
step jolted my entire body.

“This one rifle I once fired during a shooting match,” I said.
“One loaded it from the top of the breech after first locking the,
uh, 'handle' back, then with great care and much worry,
one inserted this thing called a clip inside the action.
Those clip things held eight rounds, and when one did so, this one
portion of the weapon would slam home as abruptly as anything...”

I felt the prize again. It was at the end of this particular hall,
or near it. It was part-buried beneath the residue of another
fallen-to-dust partition, and more, this particular instance was left
with the goal of catching a witch – which given where it had been
hid, and how well those hiding it did their jobs, did not make sense.

“Unless they did that false-wall early enough that one of those
capable witches came up this way,” I thought. “Those wretches
might be able to just move through the wall...”

“Not in here they could,” said the soft voice. “That
level of witch did not survive the drowning, and only a small
handful of witches of that time came close to them in that way.”
A brief pause, then, “the witches of today, however, wonder if
such beings have returned.”

“Why?” I asked – and then wished I had not, for I recalled
both instances of my 'intruding' into the Swartsburg. Getting both
Koenraads had been so 'easy' that I was frightened to contemplate the
matter further, and other instances...

Needing to work at being found during sword-practice was the
next-biggest reminder, while the most recent one was Gabriel being
more or less unable to see me before we had begun the fight with
Iggy. It made for troubling thoughts, especially as now I had an
idea as to who the witches thought might well claim that fifth
'title', so much that I wanted to fall to my face where I was walking
and scream. Only the sense of the prize I was after being almost
'near enough to touch' made this thinking abate, and as I turned
right and into a cross-passage, I nearly moaned in fear.

It was almost as if the witches naming me as they did actually made
me that kind of person in truth, and as I began slowing, the diffuse
sense of the region where this prize actually resided made for
wondering. It was not merely still well-hid, but the hidden place
was uncommonly 'large'. I picked a doorway at seeming random, and
nearly tripped myself when I came upon long mounds of whitish
'granules' that I recognized as the rapidly-decomposing remains of
human skeletons.

“The remains of witches, actually,” said the soft voice. “They
were among the last witches to die on the premises, and what you are
feeling is some of what that marked person who shot them from hiding
did to confuse the issue.”

“What?” I gasped, as I mechanically reached for a honey-vial and
then emptied its contents into my mouth.

The sudden clearing of my head but seconds later made for such a
change in both vision and thinking that I nearly did not catch my
mouth in time, and as I 'shook in place', the whole tableau before me
changed utterly, almost as if I were going back in time by some odd
means. I then noticed the others were no longer present.

The intense reek of powder smoke made my nose burn as if I had
doused its inside with some of Hans' 'strong vinegar', and as I
watched, a well-hid door in the wall suddenly 'opened' with a
scraping dragging noise to show someone who looked as if they had
been recently burned. Their skin was still red and raw in many
places, and the limping shuffle they managed was astonishing. I
expected someone hurting that much to be using crutches, if I went by
how much my knees had hurt after both instances of surgery
upon them – and the same for months prior to each surgery as well.

What this person – now missing both ears, at least the external
portions, and much of their nose – was carrying was even more so;
for it was a rifle that resembled what I had once had to such
a degree that it seemed a near-exact copy. As I looked closer at
what the person – I could not tell their gender – did as they
came up to the first of the bodies that carpeted the floor, however,
I noted differences in what they were carrying.

“It's longer,” I thought. “It's got to be eight inches longer
easily, and then that handguard is different from what I had, and
finally the receiver...”

The person removed the magazine – this nearly straight, not bent
like some I had seen – and then retracted the bolt using the
charging handle. Again, I was utterly astonished, at least until
this individual caught the flying cartridge in midair. It then lay
gleaming in his – his? – hands, and my vision seemed to zero in
on the thing.

“That bullet's got to be over an inch long,” I gasped. “What
kind of..?”

The person then turned one of the bodies over, and the hole in the
corpse's back was of such massive size that I nearly fainted.

“F-fist sized exit wound?” I gasped. “What did he shoot
them with?”

This same tableau showed again and again, save when one of the
'corpses' suddenly twitched. Without thinking, the person moved in
what seemed slow-motion to reinsert the magazine, yank on the
charging handle, then twice, both shots sounding as one, he shot the
'still-lively' body.

The brilliant flashes coming from the weapon's muzzle seemed to
light up the room like a redoubled stroke of lightning, and when my
vision cleared once more, the person with the rifle seemed
transfixed...

Perhaps with horror.

There was no perhaps in my case, for the shooter had hit the
'mover' in the head, and now...

“No head left on that one,” I thought. “Just a ragged
stump where the neck used to be, and the same for... What?”

This last was a shocked gasp, for the shooter had not merely
targeted the 'twitching' corpse. He – or she, I now realized –
had shot a corpse which had suddenly came to its knees, and that
individual was now laying, collapsed with his back to the wall in a
huge pool of blood – and this with no head.

That lay in the now-truly-dead witch's lap. The shooter had
hit the witch at the base of the neck, and the ripped-up place where
the bullet had hit spoke of a degree of deadliness that astonished
me. Only my last encounter with Spams using strange arrows and a bow
with a pull beyond anything I had ever used had shown greater
'messiness', and as the shooter resumed checking the bodies, all that
I saw faded and I was back among friends.

And also, I was moving along out in the hall toward the west. The
entrance I wanted was two doors further down the cross-passage, and
there, I would find the decomposed wall dusting the shooter's weapon.

“If that person was using it, then why was it left behind?” I
asked silently.

“Because she left the premises herself but a few days later, and
her latest injuries forced her to abandon an otherwise
still-functional weapon,” said the soft voice. “She made it, by
the way, and died of old age in what remained of Vrijlaand many
years later.”

“L-latest injuries?” I asked.

“She killed the last of the witches before she left,” said the
soft voice, “and she was shot repeatedly in the process of wiping
them out once and for all.”

“Shot repeatedly?” I asked.

“She was hit by one of those smaller pistols when it was used by a
shamming witch,” said the soft voice, “and she kicked that witch
in the head before killing him with his own weapon. She used it, as
well as the witch's ammunition and that like it which she had hoarded
over the course of nearly a year on her way south – and those with
her who were able to keep up made it to safety also.”

“Now that I can speak of,” said Katje. “You might be hurt bad
enough for Anna to want to pack you into bed for a week, but you're
still moving faster than I am.” A brief pause, “and now I know
why you assume witches are playing dead as much as you do.”

“Uh, why?” I asked, as I came to the door in question and shined
my lantern inside to find several more elongated 'dust-mounds'. I
then adjusted my lantern while trying to cough – and finally, with
great effort, I managed to cough up and then spit a massive blob onto
the floor. I gasped and choked for a few seconds afterward just the
same, and then backed away as the blob ignited to burn with low
flames and choking gray clouds of smoke.

“That sounds bad,” said Karl. “I would not let Anna hear you
do that, as she will not let you outside for a month.”

I ignored Karl's comment, for I could feel the thing I was after in
the area, at least until I took two steps inside the doorway. I then
wondered if there were any spears left, and realized there weren't
any. I then thought that I could ask anyway.

“Do we have any of those bad spears left?”

“I have the stick to one of them, but not its head,” said Sepp.
“It works well for climbing stairs and thumping rats. Why?”

“I might need it to disarm a trap,” I said, as I put my lantern
down near my left side. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a soot-streaked
rectangular 'opening' with a section of floor layered thickly with
that grainy fibrous 'sawdust' that I now realized was the remains of
that wood substitute. It made for thinking, and then speech.

“Paper, eh?” I murmured. “That stuff?”

“The first portion of paper-making in that location across the sea
is treating with lye,” said the soft voice, “and while their lye
is better than that of Roesmaan's, it still smells more than a
little.” A pause, then, “the result may surprise you.”

“Uh, why?” I asked.

“It looks – and functions – exactly like that treated sawdust
you did,” said the soft voice, “and it will make very
acceptable paper given their methods of paper-processing.”
Another brief pause, then, “and don't be too surprised if they ask
to purchase drop-wood, also.”

“They will not get much for takers if they do that around here,”
said Sepp. “They'll need to speak to a wood-gatherer if they want
much of it, and those people are not common around here.”

“What if people receive cooking fuel as payment?” I asked, as I
began to probe the soot-rimmed 'doorway' with Sepp's spear-shaft. So
far, it did not seem trapped. I then shined my lantern inside the
'hole'.

“This place had people in it, all right,” I said, upon finding
what looked like a warren of small 'cubicles' branching off of a
narrow passageway. I then looked down and found what might have been
a recent-vintage boot-print. “Did someone come up here recently?”

“Not just one someone, but several someones – if you mean
recently as being 'within the last ten years'. This portion of the
building is nowhere near as dusty as the rest of the building was, so
that four-year old footprint looks as if it was made last week.”

“Was?” asked someone female from somewhere behind me.

“Yes, was,” said the soft voice. “It was more than a
lack of ventilation that caused it to be so dusty in here – it was
the curses put upon the building and the fetishes, living and
otherwise, lurking in the building.”

The warren of rooms appeared at first to be filled with trash, and a
poke with the stick showed much of the faintly dusty articles to be
old discarded clothing, neatly-piled short-cut sticks of some kind,
some very bad and rusted knives that looked to have come from Georg's
scrap bins, and now and then, a badly-dented cooking pot heavily
studded with fifteen-line rivets. Those tended to have but little
odor, but I knew that they were fit for turning food into poison. I
somehow suspected 'decent-sized' bathing dippers were very
popular among 'tramps' and 'itinerant seamstresses', as those, even
when done using fifteen-line rivets, were actually usable for small
meals provided reasonable care was taken in their use.

“Yours especially, which is why there have been so many orders for
them,” said the soft voice. “The larger size of dipper is quite
useful for one-person meals, and a smaller second-hand pot works well
for boiling bathwater once it's been 'smoked' over an open fire for a
few nights.”

“Smoked?” I asked.

“Those bacteria find woodsmoke, especially that from certain
trees, to be quite toxic,” said the soft voice. “It tends to
make the tin spotty over most of the pot by the time they're smoked
enough to be dead, but if one is merely interested in boiling water
for bathing, such pots tend to work well enough for that purpose once
the soot has been rubbed off with damp sand.”

The others began to slowly follow me, and soft murmurs of speech
spoke of 'recent use' by someone on the run from a pack of witches.
As I came to one impossibly-narrow hallway, I asked, “how did they
build these things?”

“Stolen materials from the witches' supplies over a period of many
months,” said the soft voice, “and these chambers were commonly
used for sleeping once the original sleeping quarters were converted
into places for raising food.” A brief pause, then, “most of the
outer rooms on the upper floors were converted into a species of
greenhouse once the war started, and those who worked here
supplemented their diets with both plants they grew from seeds and
any animals they happened to catch.”

“Animals?” I asked. “R-rats?”

“Those and some escaped experimental animals that bred especially
quickly,” said the soft voice. “There was a flock of pigeons
also, but those birds mostly left the Abbey during the first days of
the war.” A brief pause, then, “every wild pigeon currently
found on the continent, however, is descended from those the laborers
managed to keep on the premises and then breed for their food and
eggs.”

“Eggs?” I asked.

“The same shape and about twice the diameter of those you ate at
the second kingdom house,” said the soft voice. “While pigeons
are not chickens for egg-laying, they are much less
hazardous to keep.”

“Not chickens?” I asked.

“Chickens lay a fair number of eggs, unlike pigeons,” said the
soft voice, “and you can only rob so many eggs from under a pigeon
before it thinks to quit laying, unlike chickens.”

“So you keep a lot of them,” I thought as I went to the
end of the hallway I found myself in. The prize was very close.
“You can get your weekly egg that way.”

“By that time it was closer to an egg every other day for most of
the surviving laborers,” said the soft voice, “and between the
eggs they gathered, the animals they caught, and the plants they
raised, many of them who survived past the closing of the upper
witch-hole lived long enough to escape the building.”

“And the pigeons?” I asked.

“By that time, this floor all but swarmed with pigeons, and
the hot part of the war was mostly over, so there weren't soldiers
all over the place hungry for fresh meals – so when they were
released, they flew south into lands where suitable forage was still
present, and eventually became today's wood-pigeons.”

The hallway ended abruptly, and I thought to bust the thin
'pressboard' wall down until I recalled the possibility of the weapon
being trapped. I then went into the right doorway, this narrow
enough to need care as I walked, and found what looked like old
broken-down bunks lining two of the walls. The remains of these
structures, while no longer usable as bunk beds, were still sturdy
enough for the passage between them to be quite narrow – and once I
came to another doorway, I found myself in another hall, this going
left and right. I turned left.

I also found it narrow enough that I had to be careful not to get
stuck, and when I found another 'room' after turning a corner, I knew
suddenly that this was the room.

Amid 'trash' and other materials littering the floor, a strange yet
familiar outline lay under a grimy 'plastic-impregnated' cloth sheet
of some kind, and while the dust was nowhere near as thick as in the
rest of the building, there was enough present to cause sneezing on
my part as I went to my hands and knees so as to 'sneak up on' the
sheet. My lantern, freshly adjusted, was in my left hand as I
crawled to the edge of the sheet, and when I came to it, I found my
'string' and tied a knot at the sheet's corner, all the while praying
that it would hold long enough for me to drag the sheet off of what
it was hiding. I paid out the string, all the while slowly backing,
and when I came back into the hall, I bumped into someone.

“Did you find it?” asked Sarah, who began backing up as I
resumed walking backward.

“Two jugs so far,” said Sarah, “though these jugs are empty
enough to make me wonder if we should keep both of them. Then,
someone found another of those heating lamps that does not use a
wick, and finally, I found a tin of very strange things that make me
wonder as to what they truly are.”

“A tin?” I asked. I was continuing to back up. If someone had
put one of those 'common' grenades under that sheet, the thin
material of these walls would barely slow the splinters down –
unless we were a good distance away and laying with our faces in the
dust when I pulled the string. “Anything else?”

“Yes, some sheets of very strange cloth,” said Sarah. “They're
as light as anything I've ever felt and as slippery as if they were
suffused with beeswax and then polished with a board.”

“You'll want to keep those,” said the soft voice. “They
make excellent shelter-cloths, and between those and some canes cut
from across the river, they'll work well for a 'boat-privy'.”

“I wondered about that,” said Sarah, as I came back to where I
heard the others. I then spoke: “down on the floor, everyone.
This might be a trap.”

I followed my own advise, and after yelling that I was 'pulling the
string', I waited several seconds and began pulling. A faint
rustling noise resulted, which continued as long as I pulled the
string. I had to stop to rewind it on its stick several times, until
I actually had a 'ground-cloth' in my hands at the end of the fifth
such session.

“That is thicker cloth than what I found,” said Sarah upon
feeling the cloth in question. “This one might work for sheltering
against rain.”

“Both species of cloth will do that,” said the soft voice, “but
if it rains much, what he just recovered will perform much better.”
A brief pause, then, “there are more such cloths in that armory,
so what you found can be considered samples.”

“Bad samples, if I go by their wear,” said Sarah. “Still,
they're likely to be usable.”

“And they will not register on those people's equipment,” I
murmured, as the knot came adrift at my touch.

“No, actually they will,” said the soft voice, “but those
monitoring the output of those sensors will spend hours at the
least identifying exactly what they picked up.” A pause, then,
“note the phrase 'at the least'.”

“Yes?” I asked. “You mean 'closer to days', actually –
unless those people work a lot harder than is usual for them.
Correct?”

While there was no answer from one source, Sarah supplied one of
sorts as she folded up the cloth. The stuff folded into a
surprisingly small volume, so much so that when Sarah 'pocketed' it,
I was stunned.

Until she told me that what I had found was a good deal bulkier than
the three other cloths that had turned up thus far, and that those
blue-suited people were regularly used as messengers across
the sea.

“They would not last long at all were they messengers here,”
said Sarah. “They need to be told what to do as if they wore brass
cones, and they're as slow as a badly lamed horse unless those over
them threaten them constantly with loaded guns.”

“Now we need to investigate what was hidden,” I said softly as
if to answer Sarah about 'thick-headed thugs', as I got up from the
floor. “Everyone, stay down. I need to check this carefully.”

I had the impression that what I said now was being followed, and as
I trod the floor, I could tell I was also being followed – though
this person was not merely careful, but very quiet. I asked a
question.

“Sarah?”

“Yes?” she said softly. “I suspect you could teach my cousin
much about traps, and myself yet more.”

“I could?” I asked.

“Yes, as she would have not thought to do what you did with the
string,” said Sarah. “Somehow, I suspect this trap to be not
what you think it to be, but something entirely different.”

“Like a brick of nail-studded C-4 explosive with a hair-trigger
detonator?” I asked.

“It does not have nails,” said the soft voice, “nor
does it have a hair-trigger detonator, and it was not
called that by that name – but otherwise, you're quite close to
what was used as a trap for that rifle.”

“A brick of plastic explosive?” I asked. “That much?”

“By that time, that injured woman was in no mood for
half-measures,” said the soft voice, “and she'd become about as
good as Sarah's cousin is now for setting traps – hence she
used a sizable charge of that explosive, as well as the best
detonator she could find in a month's careful search and pilfering.”

“Sizable?” I asked.

“Two entire 'bricks', still in their wrappings so they would keep
their best,” said the soft voice. “She did not bother with nails
or anything else, as she knew 'blast' by itself was ample to scatter
anyone – witch or otherwise – within a reasonable distance given
that large of a charge.”

“That sounds like some mining dynamite I've seen,” said Sarah.
“It might not have been the type that Hans has spoken of as
frightening him, but it was not much less when I tossed a
stick of it at that coach.”

“What happened?” I asked. I was close to the room now, and I
paused to readjust my lantern.

“The coach went up in smoke, and I flew up into a tree like a bird
from its explosion,” said Sarah. “Those witches were most
irritated, especially as they were entirely black from the smoke and
fire, and their coach and its team of smelly mules were
entirely gone.”

“Entirely black?” I asked, as I came to the threshold of the
room and began to kneel down. “Soot?”

“That and severe burns, most likely,” said Sarah. “This room
has a trip-line, at least one, and possibly more of them. How touchy
is this detonator...” Sarah's voice rose to a screech. “What is
that thing?”

What Sarah had spoken of was not merely thinly filmed with
dust, but was sandwiched between two sizable bricks of a faintly gray
substance. I recognized it instantly as the mottled gray-black rifle
I had seen in my 'nightmare', and propping its long front end up was
a tall stack of at least three magazines. Loose rounds lay scattered
in large mounds in front of and next to the 'bricks', and now
I knew why the woman didn't bother with 'nails'; the mounded
ammunition would work more than passably for short distances.

“Those are not small bricks, either,” said the soft
voice. “Each of them weighs roughly two pounds – and what Sarah
spoke of regarding the power of that explosive is but the smell
of the mule.”

“And that ammunition would cause enough trouble by itself when it
was sent flying,” I muttered. “Now where is that detonator...
Oh, the back side of that off brick, and the strings...”

“String,” said the soft voice. “She knew that anyone
worrisome would either be well-beyond trashed from the drugs used by
the witches of that era, or deathly ill from not using them – hence
she merely tied the string to the rifle's muzzle.”

“Any witch currently alive would be dead from those doses,” said
the soft voice. “The remaining witches by then were usually so
impaired that they'd run in and just grab that rifle up without the
slightest precaution whatsoever, and by that time, she knew the
strengths and weaknesses of the witches all too well.”

“She killed them all, so why did she bother trapping it?” asked
Sarah, as I came closer to the rifle. Sarah, wisely, stayed some
further distance away.

“Because she knew other witches might well come here when
she did what she did,” said the soft voice. “Her injuries caused
her to become what the witches called a 'monster' once she'd gone
half the distance to Vrijlaand, and her caution – and ruthlessness
– became legend, so much so that she was sometimes compared to the
Mistress of the North.”

“She must have killed enough of them,” I muttered.
“Ch-Charles...”

“She was his most-able lieutenant,” said the soft voice.

“R-Rachel,” said Sarah.

“W-what?” I gasped. I was still crawling, this slow and
yet looking for further trip-wires. I still wanted to make certain,
as well as study this woman's handiwork. I might well learn
something useful.

“H-her name,” said Sarah. “I wonder if she was one of them.”

“Them?” I asked. “Oh, was she of the Chosen?”

“Not then she was,” said the soft voice. “She was 'adopted'
into their tribes once she came into the central portion of
Vrijlaand, and her ability in the realm of letters grew rapidly
once she had a chance to be educated – and the entirety of more
than one tapestry is based closely on her writings.”

I came even with the muzzle of the rifle, this now close enough to
touch it, and when I came to the backside of the weapon, I had a
chance to see that I had underestimated the number of magazines.
There weren't three of them.

“There's more like five of those things,” I spat, “and that
thing there's got to be the detonator. Now where's the string?”

I could not see the string, so I came closer to where the 'spark
plug' was stuffed into the back of the 'brick of explosive, and began
clearing away the clinking bags that had partly hidden it. For some
reason, I turned one over – and was astonished to see written in
dark 'rusted' letters the following.

“Ammunition for type 1116 Military rifle

125 loaded rounds with all-purpose bullet.”

“All purpose?” I asked, as I cleared the third such bag away
from the brick' of plastic explosive. “How much ammunition did
this woman leave for this thing?”

“Enough that she had planned on using a small cart to carry her
supplies,” said the soft voice. “She had to leave that cart
behind, along with most of her other long-hoarded escape supplies.”
A brief pause, then, “all-purpose, when one speaks of the pre-war
ammunition of that country, meant 'it ignores body armor if the stuff
is light enough to actually wear it and move readily, it's stable
enough to be accurate out to nearly half a mile, and it causes a lot
of damage when it hits if it's traveling at all rapidly.”

“Fist-size exit holes?” I spluttered, as I bared the detonator
entirely and began to feel for the string tying it. It had to be of
the fineness of a hair for me to have such difficulty finding it, but
when I finally found the 'string', I found I needed my 'wirecutters'
to actually sever it.

As well as enough force for me to wonder if I'd damaged them, and a
sigh of relief when I saw their edges to be undamaged. Sarah came to
the other side of the rifle, then brought out a bag and began to bag
up the loose rounds.

“I've seen these things twice before, but never this many,” said
Sarah. “I'm glad witches are scarce around here, as this stuff
would have them fighting over it worse than what was in that trunk.”

“Twenty guilders for one of these?” I asked.

“This type here is more,” said Sarah, “especially if it looks
like this stuff.”

“Just needs a little dusting off, you mean,” I said. “Perhaps
wipe them down with clean rags?”

“You'll want to do that with this ammunition before firing it,”
said the soft voice, “but otherwise, Sarah's right.”

“It's still good, isn't it?” I asked.

“It will function fine in that rifle and the others like it,”
said the soft voice. “It will, however, leave more 'soot' in the
weapon's action compared to the material in that armory.”

“And hence need it will want much cleaning,” said Sarah. “Any
powder that rusts guns as bad as those Tossers must have far too much
niter, or something worse yet wrong with it.”

“Perhaps this ammunition uses such materials, then,” I said, as
I began looking for a way to 'safe' the detonator. I saw a small
hole, and thought to stick a sewing needle in it. As I began looking
for one in my possible bag, Sarah asked me what I was after.

“A needle for this, uh, detonator,” I said. “It doesn't need
to be a particularly good needle, but it helps if it's a thicker
one.”

“Like this here?” asked Sarah, as she reached into her bag and
drew out an old-looking brass 'thing' that might have been a needle
of some kind. “I found this on the floor near where all
those rats were.”

With Sarah's 'needle' in hand, I carefully grasped the detonator,
and put the 'needle' in the hole along the device's body. As if it
had been intended for this very purpose, the 'needle' slid right in,
and as I pushed it in to the circled portion which formed its
'handle', I had the intimation that I wanted to bend the other side
to a degree. I did so, and then, I was entirely surprised.

“Now you can remove that detonator,” said the soft voice. “What
Sarah found was not a needle, but a detonator safety pin – and you
slipped it back in the hole where one like it originally sat.”

“Are there more of these things?”

“Yes, but those boxes saw no small amount of depredation, unlike
nearly all of the other supplies down in that armory,” said the
soft voice. “There were a lot of those boxes, though, so
you still have a fair number of those devices.”

“How many is that?” asked Sarah. “If these are touchy, then
we might just want them for traps.”

“They're a bit too touchy for Hans to set without blowing himself
up, at least now,” said the soft voice. “The chief trouble with
this type of device was unless they were made exactly right,
they tended to be erratic – with some being 'hair-trigger' devices
and some a good deal less sensitive, like that one there.”

“Almost need to play with their parts some to get them to behave,”
I muttered, as I bagged the detonator.”

“That was almost exactly what that woman did,” said the soft
voice. “She'd gotten no less than five devices, took them apart
and selective-fit the critical pieces, and came up with two 'good'
ones, two 'touchy' ones – and one 'nightmare device' that was
nearly as bad as some things Hans' grandfather more or less invented
by himself years ago.” A pause, then “she'd used up the three
worst ones, and she wanted to save one of the good ones for a
souvenir so as to show the people where she was going.”

With the ammunition bagged, it was now the turn of the rifle itself,
and I carefully picked it up. I was astonished, both at how its
controls came readily to hand – it was exactly like the one I had
had that way – a and then astonished further by its heft. It was
not light.

I learned just how 'not light' it was when I slowly came out of the
doorway with two weapons. Sarah had both 'bricks' of plastic
explosive, and by the time I had come back into a more-visited
region, she was speaking in a choked voice and muttering of 'blasted
privies' and 'dead Shoeten'.

“It smells that bad?” I asked.

“I have never smelled anything like this stuff,” said Sarah,
“but if I need something of a solid nature so as to call
flies, I think I have found it.”

As Sarah and I met up with the others, that seemed the general
comment, at least until Karl got his hand on one of the bricks and
Maarten the other. Then, more comments began to erupt, ones that I
had no idea existed.

“I know what this stuff is,” said Karl, “as I recognize its
stink and its look.”

“What is it, then?” said Gabriel. “It smells vile.”

“I think this stuff is moldy Kuchen dough,” said Karl, “and if
Anna sees it, she will toss it.”

“It might stand that, and then it might not,” said Sarah. “That
stuff is supposed to be as strong as bad mining dynamite.”

“Moldy?” I asked.

“Yes, covered with white-thread,” said Karl. “It smells
really bad, just like this, and it feels a lot like it, too – only
this stuff is wrapped like good cooking fuel.”

“It still stinks,” said Katje. “Now I hope this stove I found
works, as ours is starting to go bad.”

“Yours is s-starting to go bad?” I asked.

“Yes, very much so,” said Katje. “It leaks much smoke, its
brickwork inside is falling apart, and there isn't a door on it that
isn't about to fall off of its own weight.”

“Odd, it seemed passable when I last saw it,” I said.

“That thing had to be made by a witch,” said Maarten.

“It was not made by a witch,” said the soft voice. “It
was just a very old stove that was 'prettied up' by some
witches while the house was being built, and now their abysmally poor
workmanship is beginning to show its true nature.”

“Very old?” I asked.

“It sat in two houses before theirs, and both times it was rescued
from the wreckage left by those northern people,” said the soft
voice. “It's seen about four times as much use as the one where
you live, as it came up to the first kingdom in a well-used state,
more so than is the usual for such stoves.”

“Where did it come from?” I asked. “The fifth kingdom?”

“It did,” said the soft voice. “The fifth kingdom did much
better work then, which is why that stove had functioned well as long
as it did.”

“That place has gone downhill a fair amount since I started
preaching, if the talk I've heard is true,” said Maarten. “Now
we have much to carry, and at least the stairs are heading down and
not up.”

“And once at the bottom, there are a few fetishes left to clear,
as those people outside are really wanting inside here,” I said.

“Not tonight,” said Gabriel. “Tomorrow.”

“Early tomorrow,” I said. “About dawn, if not before, which
means we dare not wait to deal with those things.”

“True,” said the soft voice. “Those carpenters might be
sleeping now, but they're the only ones in that camp's current shift
that are sleeping.”

And faintly, coming as if from a far country, I heard singing, the
steady ringing of hammer upon anvil, the sounds of what might have
been digging – and fainter yet, the noises of a vast multitude
of trowels. This last made for an astonishing reaction.

“Ooh,” squeaked Sarah, as she dropped her bag and
followed it down to kneel beside it. “Trowels!”

I almost did the same exact thing, save I was far too tired to do
much more than stand mutely, at least until Sarah stood once more,
this on tiptoe, and stuffed my ears with ear-corks.

“Now for your dose,” she said. “I have that special
tincture, and I just got my own dose.”

I received an entire tube of the stuff, and the potent taste told me
Sarah had been generous in naming it. I gasped, then said, “did
you put more in that stuff?”

“This vial, yes,” said Sarah. “It got an extra tube of the
bull formula compared to that batch Hans did up, and two more drops
of that tincture for pain, and then a painted label speaking of
trowels.” A pause, then, “I made it up after seeing those plans
and how much stonework will be needed here.”

“You will wish that tincture for the trip, also,” said the soft
voice. “I'd make up at least two more vials of that size to the
same formula, as it works well for loud and irritating noises in
general.”

On the way down the stairs, those without burdens acquired them; and
the wind, this coming from each door, slowly built into a softly
chilly blast that seemed to blow not merely coolness, but also an
increasing amount of dust at us from above. By the time we had
passed perhaps a dozen floors, the general sound was one of sneezing
– and I thought to speak to the dust, then wondered if I should.

The soft muted rumble started from seemingly everywhere to then go
to a shrieking howl within what seemed like seconds, and through
closed eyes I could see a veritable tornado ripping through the halls
of the building to pick up dust...

Ages of dust, almost as if every fussily-neat witch-house had
gathered its constant dustings and brought them here since the place
was empty of its 'deeded' occupants and left with its traps and its
curses...

And now, finally, those hundreds of years of curse-gathered dust and
sand and dirt was now coming home to roost with a surly vengeance.

“Soot, too,” I muttered as the howling increased yet more.
“Dirty up every antique, every dark witch-house, and send forth
their hidden malodorous reeks unto every pig within a day's ride,
and...”

“And what?” asked 'someone'.

“Oh, and send every unpleasant rodent and other crawling creature
found here into the bed of a witch – blue-back spiders included.
Every witch needs such a spider, and the same for every supplicant.”

The screaming howl peaked, then passed – and with a suddenness and
a shuddering noise like a safe being dropped three stories to hit
upon hard ground, the noise about us ceased.

“Cough, I can breathe again, cough,” said Katje. “Now what
did you do – dust up every witch within two days' hard riding?”

“And sent swine to them,” I said. “What?”

“You – and every other guard that's so inclined – is going to
be glad for what is in that armory,” said the soft voice. “Be
glad witches are so scarce in this area, as otherwise you would ride
home in a war-zone.”

“What did I do?” I asked.

“Every well-hid witch within a considerable distance is now not
merely covered with soot, but is in a filthy house,” said the soft
voice. “Then, every such well-hid witch has at least one blue-back
spider in his bed, and finally, the swine are either at his door now
or they are coming in a big hurry.”

Faintly, I heard an explosion thunder, then another, then two more –
followed by storms of musketry and the booms of cannons – and over
all of this, the screaming squeals of a vast multitude of pigs.

“How many of those things are there?” I gasped.

“A lot of 'private' pig-herds were 'removed' from their
hidden pens,” said the soft voice, “so between the 'gone-wild'
pigs and the newly-escaped pigs – the entire countryside is once
more showing pigs at the doors of witches.”

“Well-hid witches, also,” said Gabriel. “Those people are now
being routed out in droves, as well as a new crop of supplicants.”

“I thought they were scarce around here,” said Karl. We had
resumed our downward travel, and the feeling of cleanliness and a
lack of dirt and smoke in the air made it much easier to
breathe. It also meant fresh spates of coughing and spitting, only
these messes did not smoke, burn, or smolder.

“They were 'scarce',” said Katje. “Some towns might have had
one person in ten who was either a witch or wished to be one, and all
save the smartest either left or were killed.” A pause, then,
“those people are now being exposed as to who they are, and not
merely in the central portion of the first kingdom.” Another brief
pause, then, “that net is now cast over a much larger area,
and even some of those places up near the north-tip and the border of
the second kingdom are now 'waking up' to the sounds of gunfire and
screaming.”

“Lukas is not enjoying it much,” I muttered. “He's about
thirty miles south of here, just gotten started, and where he and
Gilbertus currently are is sounding like the first time I did the
Swartsburg.”

“Not quite,” said the soft voice, “even if both of those men
are thoroughly frightened by the sudden appearance of vast
dust-clouds over nearly every town they're aware of in the area –
and they're further south than that.”

“How far south are they?” asked Sarah.

“About forty miles – and there is now sufficient noise in their
general area that they know one chief matter.”

“What?” I asked. My knees felt better, now that we were going
down past the eighth – or perhaps ninth – floor.

“They know the coming witches are not going to have it go
as the witches they heard and saw spoke of such matters,” said the
soft voice, “and those few witches that survive the next two
days in the first kingdom will tell tales that those new-arrived
witches will find difficult to believe without proofs.”

“They will have those,” I muttered. “They'll have so
many proofs they'll want to turn tail and run home, and having sold
out, they'll have two choices – no, not two. They don't have any
choice, not any more. They'll have to band together so as to
survive, and they'll be thinking they're about to sup with
Brimstone...”

A fresh spate of gunfire, this deep, prolonged, and rumbling,
interrupted me.

“And they've sown the wind for centuries, and now – now, the
whirlwind has come upon them.”